There's also the response Peter Burns and I were batting around the other day with Michael Meeropol: that there's no freedom, or it has no value, without resources to use it. If workers are "free" in the sense that they must work for the bosses or die, what's the great benefit to that? Well, there is a great benefit, as opposed to slavery or serfdom. But those aren't the options most people think of as alternatives these days. A vivid but I think accurate way of understanding this is to revive the old notion of wage slavery. Wage labor is rather like slavery in that it is forced on people who have no choice: more, it is just like slavery in that it gives the boss virtually absolute control over the worker for the period of the wage contract, especially given the "real subsumption" of labor under capital. Of course bosses can't do anything they like to wage workers, but there were slave codes too. Think of wage labor as slavery by the hour. --Justin On Mon, 29 Jan 1996, Doug Henwood wrote: > At 12:52 PM 1/29/96, C.N.Gomersall wrote: > > >Stripped to its essentials, economic freedom is concerned with property > >rights and choice. Individuals are economically free if property they have > >legally acquired is protected from invasions or intrusions by others, and > >if they are free to use, exchange or give away their property so long as > >their actions do not violate other people's similar rights." And so on. > > Without Marxian notions of exploitation, it's very difficult to refute this > sort of thing, further proof of the importance of what I called practical > Marxism the other day. How do liberals (American sense) respond to this? By > extending the notion of property to God- and/or Constitution-given > "rights"? That leads you to the elitist dead-end of litigation and Supreme > Court worship. Any liberals out there who can help me out? > > Doug > > -- > > Doug Henwood > Left Business Observer > 250 W 85 St > New York NY 10024-3217 > USA > +1-212-874-4020 voice > +1-212-874-3137 fax > email: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > web: <http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/LBO_home.html> > >
